Bodyweight Training for Building Muscle

 

A Simple Method for Using Bodyweight Workouts as a Form of Muscle Building

     After writing my last bodyweight training article—Bodyweight Training and Beyond: Lessons Learned from Martial Arts—I started making some more notes for Part 4.  However, while I was doing that, I was thinking about trainees who might want a simple way to use bodyweight workouts to build muscle.  So, I’m writing this piece as sort of an “in between” essay before I finish Part 4 of my Bodyweight Training and Beyond series.

     The method discussed here is good for you if you want to use bodyweight training as your primary method of hypertrophy.  This is not an article for elite athletes, who might need more strength, speed, power, or a combination of those 3.  It’s also not for you if you’re already well-versed in bodyweight training and are already capable of highly voluminous, intense bodyweight sessions.  However, if you are someone who usually uses free weights, or you’re a lifter who is looking for something a little different, or you simply need a change of pace, this method might be worth taking up.

     For this program, you will train the exercises on 3 days each week.  You can use a simple full-body program and train, say, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Or you can split the movements in half and train 6 days in a row, but still 3 for each movement, before taking 1 day off.

     Select between 2 and 4 movements.  If you decide to utilize this program because you have trouble making it to the gym and you’re often strapped for time, you could simply do push ups and bodyweight squats.  You could also select 3 movements.  Dips, chins, and walking lunges would be good. Or you can select 4 movements: dips (or push ups), chins, Cossack squats, and bodyweight squats.  This is probably not an exhaustive list, but here are some movements that would work well using this method:

Dips (do these in between chairs if you don’t have access to some bars)

Push ups (all types - alternating staggered push ups, Hindu push ups, diamond push ups - if you haven’t done so, then read my previous bodyweight essay for some more ideas)

Chins

Lunges (walking, forward, reverse)

Cossack squats (a heck of an underrated movement - might be the best lower body move you can do for this workout)

Bodyweight squats

Sissy squats

Hindu squats

     Feel free to add an abdominal movement and some standing calf raises to any or all of your workout days, as well.

     On each lift, on each training day, simply train until you get a pump.  Once your muscles are pumped, stop that movement.  It’s as easy as that.  Let’s say you’re only doing 2 movements, push ups and walking lunges.  You might do 60 reps on push ups and 80 reps on lunges, and that’s it.  Now, you’re not doing 60 reps all at once.  On your push ups, you might do ladders.  Start with 1 rep, add a rep on each set, and stop as soon as you’re pumped.  You might do 2-3-5-10 ladders.  You might simply do sets of 10 reps on each set.  It doesn’t matter.  Choose whatever set/rep range you want.  The only thing I want you to do is to stop a set before you reach failure.  Do NOT go all-out, to complete momentary muscular failure on a set.  If you don’t pay attention to my advice, because you enjoy the pain of such a set, then, in that case, only take your first set to failure.  On the remaining sets, leave a couple reps in the tank.

     Stop once you have a pump, not once your muscles are pumped to the max, completely engorged with blood.  That would be too much.  Use Zatsiorsky’s well-known statement to train as often as possible, as heavy as possible, while being as fresh as possible, and just apply that to bodyweight training.  “Heavy” in this case is workload, or how many reps you’re doing for each movement.  Sure, 60 reps on your push ups might be far below what you are capable of doing if you were going all-out or even “hard,” but, once again, you are simply training until you acquire a pump.  Nothing more.  The key to HFT is to always keep in mind that you want to be (at least somewhat) recovered by the time you do your next session for that same muscle group.  If you go all-out on push ups, you should only do so if you know you can do that workout, or something close, 3 days in a week.

     Having written the above paragraph, your reps will probably oscillate from workout to workout.  That’s fine and perfectly acceptable.  If you get 60 reps on your push ups on Monday, you may be a little sore on Wednesday, so you might just do 40 reps.  On Friday, you might get 50.  Eventually, you should be doing the same number of repetitions at each session.

     If you choose chins and dips as two of your movements, you may not get that many reps.  So, you might get pumped at 20 reps on chins or 30 reps on dips.  For those movements, you can do ladders, and not let your reps get as high, or you can do something like 2-3-5 ladders.  Anything similar would work well.

     Slowly add reps over the weeks.  Let’s say you choose push ups and Cossack squats for your movements.  Once you can do 100 reps on each movement with ease at each session, it’s probably time to switch to a new program.  But however many reps you end up doing, this program will probably “run its course” after 6 to 8 weeks.

     This is also a good training plan if you have been training heavy using free weights.  It will give your body and mind a bit of a break from the heavier training.  When you’re finished with a training cycle, go back to your heavy free-weight sessions.

     Yes, if you’re wondering, you can also use this method with free weights or combine bodyweight workouts with free weights.  Maybe you can only make it to the gym 3 days per week, but you want to train 6.  Do push ups at home on 3 days and squat at the gym the other 3 days.  You can also do bodyweight training and weights together in one session.  One day, you might do push ups, chins, and barbell curls.  The next day it might be deadlifts, Cossack squats, and walking lunges.

     Since the purpose is hypertrophy, eat like a bodybuilder while you follow this program.  Eat 4 to 6 small meals per day.  Get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily, get enough healthy fat, and eat enough carbohydrates.  When trying to gain muscle mass—as much as they are occasionally maligned these days—carbs are important.  I think a good macronutrient plan is 50-60% carbs, 30% protein, and 10-20% fat.  Eat at least 15 times your bodyweight in calories on a daily basis.  20 is probably even better.

     If you want a simple but nonetheless effective bodyweight plan for building muscle, then try this one on for some mass-building size.  Simple, easy, effective; you can’t ask for much more than that.